Destination: Chicago, 2018

From left to right: Dr. Sarah Peters (Honors Student Association Faculty Sponsor); Jiajun Lin (Business); Elsa Moseley (Political Science); Erin Dempsey (Biology); Sidney Lewis (English; above); Robin Clymer (Physics, below); Tyler Whitney (Biology); Darby Heard (Biology/Studio Art).

Friday, March 16th, seven ECU Honorables joined me and HSA faculty Sponsor Dr. Sarah Peters at 6:45 a.m. to embark on a four-day, three-night adventure in Chicago. This was the first Honors Journey for six of the students and the second for Darby, who went on our 2016 trip to San Francisco, and the third for Sidney, who was on our trips to Massachusetts in 2017 and New York City in 2015. The hero of the day was Honors faculty member Dr. Preston Draper who drove us to DFW and picked us up at midnight three days later.

When we got back, I asked everyone three questions:  What was your favorite experience on the trip? What was your favorite food? And did you experience any memorable firsts?  Here are their answers:

FAVORITE EXPERIENCE:  Darby: Seeing the musical Hamilton at the CIBC theatre (honorable mentions: the Chicago Architecture Foundation tour; the Devil in the White City tour; and a free day spent exploring the city and shopping for fancy pens with Dr. Peters); Tyler:  Hamilton! (honorable mention:  Devil in the White City Tour); Robin: Hamilton! (honorable mention: seeing "Dream Freaks Fall from Outer Space" at the Second City comedy club); Sidney Lewis: the Devil in the White City Tour, the American Writers Museum, and seeing the start of Route 66--also trying many new foods!; Erin:  the massive, intense St. Patrick's Day celebration; Elsa: Hamilton! and the Devil in the White City Tour; Jiajun: Hamilton, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the American Writers Museum; Dr. Peters:  Hamilton! (honorable mention: The Art Institute, the American Writers Museum, running around with Darby on Monday--especially the not-losing-her-phone-at-Chipotle part).

FAVORITE FOOD:  Darby: Cajun food at Heaven on Seven and Greek food at the Greek Islands restaurant in Greektown; Tyler:  a breakfast sandwich with doughnuts in the place of bread, and the saganaki (flaming cheese) and potatoes at Greek Islands; Robin: everything at Greek Islands, especially the psarasoupa; Sidney: the Chicago-style deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's, the Chicago-style hot dog at Portillo's, and the best breakfast of her life (!) at Lou Mitchell's; Erin: the deep dish pizza at Malnati's; Elsa: Hong Kong/Cantonese-style food in Chinatown and the deep dish pizza at Malnati's; Jiajun: the Hong Kong/Cantonese-style food in Chinatown (especially the shrimp dumplings and Hong Kong-style roast duck); Dr. Peters: Heaven on Seven and its assortment of hot sauces ("it's food and a project!") and everything at the Greek Islands.

MEMORABLE FIRSTS AND MOSTS:  first taxi ride (Tyler); first subway ride (Sidney); most steps in a day (Tyler); first doughnut sandwich (Tyler); first Greek restaurant (Tyler, Sidney); first Chicago-style deep dish pizza (Tyler, Sidney, Erin, Robin, Elsa);  first St. Patrick's Day celebration (Sidney); first Chicago-style hot dog (Sidney and Erin); first live Improv show (Erin, Robin, and Elsa);  first fountain pen purchase (Darby); first serial killer tour (several); first architecture tour (several); first time to lean out of a skyscraper (Elsa and Jiajun at the John Hancock Building's 94th floor Tilt!), first time to try Hong Kong-style Chinese food (Elsa), nicest hotel room (Elsa and others); first time seeing a TSA agent use an xray on a banana (Dr. Peters); first time to use a typewriter (Elsa and others); first time seeing a river dyed green (everyone!).

After buying 3-day travel passes at O'Hare, we took the El to downtown and then switched trains to get to our 40-floor hotel on the Magnificent Mile. After checking in, we walked to Lou Malnati's, where we filled up on classic, Chicago-style, deep dish pizza!
After we helped Elsa celebrate an early birthday, some of us walked to Lake Michigan before meeting up with the rest of our Honorable crew at Second City Comedy Improv Club, where we had tickets to the main stage show.
The show we saw--"Dream Freaks Fall from Outer Space"--featured Kelsey Kinney, Ryan Asher, Tyler Davis, Jeffrey Murdoch, Tien Tran and Nate Varrone. We'll be watching to see if any of them make it big as so many other Second City alums have. For many of us, the best sketch of the night was one about Waldo from the "Where's Waldo?" series ("...no one asks 'how 'is Waldo?")
Day Two, Saturday, March 17th: It was 40 degrees colder in Chicago than it was in Oklahoma the day we left, but we hit the Magnificent Mile honorably along with several thousand St. Patrick's Day celebrants (some of them not so honorably).
Just a few minutes before we reached the Michigan Avenue Bridge, the police closed it--and several others!--for the St. Patrick's Day parade, and we had to weave our way through huge crowds to get to a bridge that would allow us to make it to the starting point of the Chicago Architecture Foundation tour headquarters, where we'd reserved tickets for a "Historic Skyscrapers" tour. We crowd-surfed the St. Patty's day throng honorably.
In the lobby of the historic Marquette building, which was constructed in 1895.

In the Financial District, in front of the Art Deco-style Chicago Board of Trade skyscraper, built in 1930.
Checking out the Manhattan Building, constructed in 1891.
After our Historic Skyscrapers tour, we had cajun food at Heaven on Seven ("everyone who comes back from Heaven says the same thing: 'you've got to try the gumbo'"), and visited the new American Writers Museum, before crossing back over the now-less-crowded Michigan Avenue bridge over the Chicago River, which had been dyed a brilliant green earlier that morning to commemorate the St. Patrick's Day festivities.

The highlight of the trip for many Honorables was a live, Saturday night performance of Hamilton at the CIBC theatre. We all had orchestra-level seats.

The CIBC Theater opened as the "Majestic Theatre" in 1906, and vaudeville stars Al Jolson, Harry Houdini, and Fanny Brice performed there.
On our third day in the city, we stopped by "Cloud Gate" (a.k.a. "The Bean") before visiting the Art Institute of Chicago.
In the Art Institute, Sidney and Erin experimented with the art of "frottage" in the Chinese wing.

We all read The Devil in the White City before taking the Sunday "Devil in the White City" tour, which took us to the Japanese park on the wooded isle designed by landscape artist Frederick Law Olmsted for the World's Columbian Exposition which Chicago hosted in 1893.

In Jackson Park, we saw this replica of the Statue of the Republic which Daniel Chester French designed for the World's Columbian Exposition.
For Sunday dinner, we feasted at The Greek Isle in Greektown.
Several of the Honorables at this table are enjoying one of their favorite meals of the trip.
"Opa!" That's saganaki (plates of flaming cheese). We had two served at our table.
We wrapped up our third day in Chicago with a visit to Union Station, where we watched the classic shootout scene where The Untouchables on our cellphones in the very room where it was filmed.
Some Honorables decided to reenact the climax. Robin's a gangster in this shot; Darby's the innocent bystander with her baby in a carriage (Elsa); and Tyler is Eliot Ness (of course).
Tyler and Robin later decided to reenact one of the deleted scenes in which Ness and Capone race down the brass handrail.
Capone wins this one.
Before flying back to Oklahoma on Monday night, we had a free day. Some visited Lou Mitchell's, the historic Route 66 diner; some visited Navy Pier; some who went to the top of the John Hancock the night before and then went to Chinatown and got Hong Kong-style Chinese food and back massages; some went to fancy pen shops and then went on a tour of North Side Chicago restaurants that were closed for lunch.

Half an hour before our final scheduled rendezvous at the hotel, I had a bit of a scare when the hotel doorman who was working the afternoon shift told me that the doorman who was working the morning shift had misinformed me about how long it would take to get the taxis we needed to get to the airport. While the morning guy had said he would have no problem quickly finding two taxis that could transport the nine of us to our Blue line El station destination, the afternoon guy told me it might take 45 minutes to get a the larger kind of taxi we were hoping to use. As luck would have it, there happened to be a taxi van outside the hotel at that very moment, but it wouldn't wait for us unless all of our travelers were present. Fortunately, all the Honorables had come back 30 minutes early for our rendezvous, so we were just able to make the connection we needed to get through rush hour traffic on the streets on the El to get to O'Hare with plenty of time to eat before our fully-booked flight was to depart.

And when we got back to DFW, fifteen minutes before midnight, the Honorable Dr. Draper was parked at the curb in a big white bus with "ECU Tigers" painted on the front.

Honorably done!